Standing Up: A Tale of Two Riots and Steps Merchants Took To Protect Their Businesses

It seems almost inevitable that this month's rioting and looting in London would draw comparisons to the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

To be fair, there are some very valid comparisons to be made. One could argue that in both instances, an evaporating police presence and hypersensitivity to the perception of police brutality only served to fuel the rioters brazen aggression in the early going.

Before the first pane of glass was broken in Tottenham, it seemed as though enablers such as Ken Livingstone were prepared to make any number of excuses for the socioeconomic reasons leading up to the unrest while very conveniently ignoring the more immediate consequences of the rioters widespread looting, arson and assaults [one wonders if these same politicians would have such a forgiving outlook if it was their home or business that was picked clean by looters and firebombed- NANESB!].

Growing up in Western New England, I saw televised coverage of the LA riots unfolding pretty close to real time, including the brutal, unprovoked and near-fatal beating of truck driver Reginald Denny.

At the time, I couldn't help but wonder how much further things would spiral out of control. But in the second day of the LA riots, I saw something that was strangely reassuring. Abandoned by the LAPD and with the California National Guard still at least a day away from showing up, Korean merchants armed with pistols, rifles and shotguns began fortifying their shops and exchanging gunfire with approaching looters and roving gang members.

Not surprisingly, the gun-phobic Northeastern press was aghast and horrified at the armed Korean 'vigilantes' defending their livelihoods taking the law into their own hands. A contemporary account from the New York Times reads:

One of the most gripping and, increasingly, controversial television images of the violence was a scene of two Korean merchants firing pistols repeatedly from a military stance. The image seemed to speak of race war, and of vigilantes taking the law into their own hands.

I'll admit that I found it fascinating but not for the inflammatory and just plain wrong reasons the New York Times cited. Having grown up in a fairly liberal state, I was told that keeping a firearm for self-defense was a fallacy and if I did so, I was far more likely to injure or kill a member of the household than an intruder. Yet that particularly dubious statistic unravelled pretty quickly for all the world to see on live TV.

From the looks of it, there were two clear choices of what to do in such a dire situation. Find yourself at the mercy of unchecked thugs and criminals like Reginald Denny and others found themselves, or protect yourself, your business and your family by taking up arms like the Koreans did. Granted some businesses were lost to arson and looting, but by day two of the riots the armed merchants made it clear that rioters bound and determined to burn or loot their businesses would pay a heavy toll.


Fast forward nearly 20 years and on the other side of the Atlantic, the closest thing you have to the defiant Koreans fending off a murderous, rampaging mob are Turkish and Kurdish shopkeepers armed with baseball bats, knives and pool cues greeting the looters in England. Granted it had the desired effect this time around, but one has to wonder what the presence of even an old Lee-Enfield .303 rifle or over-under shotgun might've done to disperse the marauding crowd.

However, the United Kingdom has among the strictest gun control laws in the world- something many gun control advocates were hoping the USA would emulate some day. Yet since the UK's 1997 prohibition on private ownership of handguns, crime has only increased.

Even more problematic, without any debate or consultation the legal standard for what constitutes self-defense in England, hinging on a magistrate or prosecutor's definition of 'reasonable force' ex post facto. Yet many Britons feel that the people who have been engaging in a week-long spree of arson, assault and robbery will get off with a light sentence- if they're ever caught.

For all the complaints about America's supposedly lax gun laws, I'll take my chances with that versus a disarmed society where you're on your own once the police decide they can no longer protect you.